Gameday.

 

It’s -2°F as I awaken and drive to the south loop to park the car for a quick getaway after this evening’s tilt. Tom Skilling says the mercury should climb toward a kickoff temperature of around 11 or 12 degrees. Balmy; but Dutchie, you’re still banned!

 

Gus is making the annual trek to The Crypt with his two sons in tow, so as to make an offering to Papa Bear and again extend the tradition to another generation of Bears fans.

 

The arch-rival packers are in town, and our guys have a shot at redemption for their embarrassing showing against them last month. There’s life on the division title front in the mix as well, with the Vikings handling the football like a greased pig yesterday in their 24-17 home loss to playoff-bound Atlanta. That’s plenty to play for, but even if there wasn’t, how could anybody with a ticket pass on the annual game against our hated neighbors?

 

No doubt many season ticket holders will, though. They’re the very definition of the “fair weather fan.” You just know they were wincing as the Falcons were taking advantage of Minnesota miscues, leaving them with a decision to be made. While they’d deny it to their death, in their hearts and to themselves they’ll reluctantly admit that they really didn’t want to see this Bears game mean anything, so they could avoid having to bundle up and trek to the lakefront on what will be the most frigid night in Bears history. They wanted a meaningless game, they rationalized, so they could have hunkered down in the warmth of a room with a TV and curled up on their couch with a steaming cup of International Coffees Chai Latte, laughing at the so-called fools sitting in the stands. Which may now include them.

 

Unless you’re scalping the seats, why bother buying tickets in the first place?

 

This will be the coldest Bears home game in 25 years, ironically also against the dreaded cheese on a December Sunday when only 35,807 showed up. That day, Bob Thomas made up for a missed extra point earlier in the fourth quarter by drilling a 22-yard field goal with ten seconds to play, giving the Bears a 23-21 win. Meaningless? That win gave Mike Ditka an 8-8 record in his first full season as Bears’ head coach and the first of his fifteen victories over the stinkkäse, pushing the Bears’ all-time edge in the series to 67-54-6. It was so cold that Lactose Intolerant and I were poking holes in the top of our beers to provide a slot for the beverage to flow. The clockwise winding motion was born in the seats on that frigid afternoon, probably in an effort to coax a quick end to the game so we could retreat to a place of warmth because our attire didn’t properly match temperatures in the single digits. But those were the days of our billingsgate youth, when the elements had no effect on how we approached an arctic home contest.

 

Now we know better. There are double-insulated boots, Under Armour, down coats, head-to-toe coveralls and a myriad of over-the-counter chemical devices to keep you warm. That, and the most obnoxious visiting fans that the NFL has to offer provide all the incentive a ticket holder needs for an enjoyable evening on Chicago’s lakefront.

 

As for the game, I read that Rashied Davis stayed an extra 30 minutes after practice on Saturday, speaking to receivers coach Darryl Drake in an effort to cure his penchant for dropping passes. I don’t know about you guys, but my idea would have been for Drake to bring in a local high school quarterback for those thirty minutes and have Davis spend the time learning how to actually catch the football instead of talking about it. Nothing like a bit of repetition to reinforce positive habits.

 

The packers are beat up and winless since they destroyed the Bears a month ago, with nothing left to play for except the pride (?) of the dairy air and a chance to spoil our season. While it’s true that a Panther victory would have helped our guy’s cause next Sunday, there's no guarantee we'll take care of our own business tonight. I think they will, and then we’ll put Mr. Gold’s theory that the Giants play hard regardless of the circumstance to the test. Now that the Giants have home field locked up, we’ll see whether they play their starters the entire game with nothing on the line in their visit to the land of 10,000 skating ponds.

 

It'll be cold. It'll be fun. It's a renewal of the oldest rivalry in the NFL. That alone is reason enough to be there.

 

Yes, my friends, it’s gameday.

 

Beat the packers and we live to fight another day.

 

LBF

12/22/2008